Nearly everybody — 90 percent — said the financial system is still at risk of another crisis. Asked to describe their household situation, nearly half said they were recovering from the downturn but are not back to where they were a few years ago. Another 28 percent said it still feels like a recession and they are still hurting. Only 19 percent said they have fully recovered.

As you might expect, lower-income Iowans have had the worst of it. Among Iowans who make less than $30,000 a year, 48 percent say they are still struggling. Only 14 percent of those who make over $70,000 a year say they still feel the effects of the downturn.

The poll of 800 Iowa adults was taken by Selzer & Co. from Sept. 22-25, before the start of the government shutdown on Oct. 1. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Iowans are slightly more optimistic about the future than they were three years ago, with 44 percent saying they’ll be better off in four years compared to 41 percent in February 2010. But the majority of Iowans still feel the next four years will find them in about the same financial shape as today or even worse.

No wonder 68 percent of Iowans say the nation is on the wrong track. Only 22 percent say it’s going in the right direction. Presumably, the report card would be even worse now that the federal government has actually shut down due to the dispute over the budget and Obamacare.

President Obama has also taken a hit. Only 39 percent of Iowans approve of the job he’s doing, with 58 percent disapproving. That’s the worst rating of Obama’s presidency. George W. Bush had similar ratings during most of his second term. Bill Clinton was never lower than 49 percent during his presidency, even though the government shutdown on his watch lasted three months.

A Treasury Department report released last week, which studied the effects of the last debt-ceiling deadline stalemate in 2011, said an actual default “could have a catastrophic effect on not just financial markets but also on job creation, consumer spending and economic growth.”

Even if Congress puts a stop to this nonsense before the country skids off the next fiscal cliff, there could be damage. The U.S. government did not default on its debt in 2011, but the political dysfunction that surrounded the debate took its toll on consumer and business confidence, the country’s credit rating, the stock market and credit risks, the Treasury Department reported.

If Iowans are still feeling this tentative about the economy when unemployment is below 5 percent, you can imagine how other Americans feel. Actually, you don’t have to imagine. A Bloomberg poll taken Sept. 20-23 showed only 27 percent saying they expect overall strength of the economy to improve in the next year, compared to 39 percent who expected improvement three months ago.

“This isn’t some damn game,” House Speaker John Boehner snarled at a news conference on Friday, blaming the president’s refusal to negotiate over legislation to resume government operations. Maybe it’s not a game, but at this stage Republicans are still talking about trying to force partisan demands on Senate Democrats and the president. Obama has said he’ll negotiate on the budget, but only after the continuing resolution is passed and the debt ceiling raised without conditions.

Obama doesn’t want the threat of a shutdown or debt default to be a perennial bargaining chip. But eventually, he’s going to have to make a deal. He could avoid future debt-ceiling threats by pushing for a way to prevent defaults. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out this week, legislation like the 2011 McClintock-Toomey bill would serve the purpose. The House has passed the bill, but Senate Democratic leaders have shunned it. They should reconsider.

There are many reasons why this recovery has been so slow and difficult. This is not the time for Washington politicians to add more self-inflicted wounds to Americans’ battered pocketbooks and skittish psyches.